Chapter 6 “The Morning After,”

“Chapter 5: The Morning After,”

────── ꕥ ⋅ IVORY ⋅ ꕥ ──────

Nobody came for us that night.

I know because I stayed awake counting every sound the panic room made, every hum of the ventilation, every distant creak in the walls, until sunlight finally crept under the door and Rage told me it was safe to leave.

He looked worse in the daylight. The cut above his eyebrow had healed completely, no trace left, but the exhaustion underneath his eyes hadn't. Four hundred years old and he still looked like a man who hadn't slept properly in weeks.

"You should rest," I said.

"I don't sleep much." He rubbed a hand over his jaw. "Comes with the territory."

"That sounds miserable."

"You get used to it." He glanced at me, something careful in his expression. "How are you doing? After last night."

"Honestly? I don't know." I sat down on the stairs leading up from the panic room, suddenly too tired to stand. "Twenty four hours ago my biggest problem was rent. Now I'm hiding from wolves in a billionaire vampire's basement."

"Hybrid," he corrected quietly. "Vampire and wolf."

"Right. Sorry. Hybrid billionaire." I almost laughed, the sound coming out cracked and exhausted. "This is insane. This is actually insane, Rage."

"I know."

"Do you? Because you seem remarkably calm for a man whose garden almost got invaded by rogue wolves."

"I've had four hundred years to get calm about worse things." He sat down beside me, close but not touching. "Doesn't mean I'm not scared. It means I've learned not to let it show."

That admission surprised me more than anything else he'd said.

"You're scared?"

"Terrified," he said simply. "Not for myself. For you."

"Why me? You've survived centuries of this. I'm sure you can survive a few rogue wolves."

"Because you're new to this world, and new things get hurt first." His eyes met mine, steady, unguarded in a way I hadn't seen from him before. "Because I made a choice at that auction that put you directly in the path of everyone who wants to hurt me. That's on me, Ivory. Not you."

"I signed the contract willingly."

"You signed it because you were desperate. There's a difference between willing and desperate, and I think we both know which one applies here."

I didn't have an answer for that, because he was right, and hearing him say it out loud made something in my chest ache in a way I didn't expect.

---

Delphine found us an hour later in the kitchen, where Rage had made me coffee without asking if I wanted it, which somehow felt more intimate than anything that had happened in the garden.

"The perimeter's secure," Delphine reported, all business, no trace of the concern she'd shown last night. "Whoever sent them retreated before dawn. No casualties on our side."

"Any idea who?" Rage asked.

"My best guess is Armand's people." Delphine's eyes flicked toward me, quick, assessing. "Testing your reaction. Seeing if the rumors about the human were true."

"Armand." I set my coffee down. "Who's Armand?"

Rage's jaw tightened. "Council member. Old friend, once. Now more of a problem."

"A problem that sends wolves to attack your house?"

"Armand doesn't do his own dirty work," Delphine said. "He hires it out. Keeps his hands clean and his conscience clear."

"Why does he care about me?"

Rage and Delphine exchanged a look I didn't understand, something loaded and careful, the kind of look adults give each other over a child's head.

"Rage," I pressed. "Why does he care?"

"There are rumors," Rage said slowly, "about humans who bond to hybrids. Old prophecies the council takes seriously even when they pretend not to. Armand's the kind of man who investigates rumors before anyone else even hears them."

"What kind of prophecies?"

"That's a conversation for another day." His voice went firm, final, the same tone he'd used the night he told me to go inside. "Right now I need you somewhere safer than this house until I know exactly what we're dealing with."

"Safer how?"

"I have a property outside the city. Warded, protected, harder to find." He was already standing, already shifting into the version of himself that made decisions and expected them followed. "I'll have Delphine pack your things."

"You're sending me away?"

"I'm keeping you alive."

"Those aren't the same thing, and you know it." I stood too, frustration cutting through the exhaustion. "You don't get to just decide things for me, Rage. Not after everything you just said about willing versus desperate."

Something shifted in his face, and for a second I thought he might actually argue, might actually dig in and insist.

Instead, quietly, he said, "You're right. I'm sorry. What would you prefer?"

The question caught me off guard.

"I want to know everything," I said. "No more half explanations. No more conversations for another day. If I'm going to be a target because of some prophecy nobody will explain to me, I want the whole story. All of it."

He studied me for a long moment, something unreadable behind his eyes.

"All right," he said finally. "Tonight. I'll tell you everything."

"Promise?"

"I already told you I keep my promises." A faint, tired smile. "This is no different."

Delphine cleared her throat, breaking whatever moment had settled between us. "In the meantime, might I suggest actual sleep? Both of you look like something the wolves dragged in."

"Charming as always, Delphine," Rage said.

"I try." She was already walking away, calling over her shoulder. "I'll have breakfast sent up in an hour. Try not to start any more supernatural wars before then."

Rage watched her go, then turned back to me, something softer in his expression now that the crisis had passed, now that daylight had chased the wolves back into whatever shadows they'd come from.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I meant what I said last night. In the garden. Before everything went wrong."

My pulse jumped. "Which part?"

"All of it." He stepped closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. "But especially the part where I said I don't want to be alone in this anymore."

"Rage—"

"You don't have to say anything back," he said quietly. "I just needed you to know it was true before things got complicated again."

I looked at him, this ancient, dangerous, exhausted man standing in his kitchen at seven in the morning after a night of wolves and blood and half truths, and I felt something crack open in my chest that had nothing to do with fear at all.

"Things are already complicated," I said.

"I know." His hand found mine, careful, giving me every chance to pull away. "Let's be complicated together, then. Just for a while."

I didn't pull away.

────── ꕥ ⋅ ꕥ ──────